Long experience has taught me that it’s not a good idea to assume that any newer Roland will do things the same as previous ones! More than any other brand, Roland’s seemed to start fresh each model series, and often useful stuff from previous models is lost while new things are added.

I’ve never quite understood why, perhaps they didn’t keep a consistent design team together, and each new generation had different people on the design team, who knows..? But yes, along with the delight of new sounds, styles and features each new generation brought, there was always some disappointment over what went missing. And it often felt like they were being designed by people who hadn’t used previous Roland’s and didn’t realize how useful certain things were.

We’ll never know for sure, but this explanation seems to fit the facts!